‘New Jim Crow’ or public safety?

Activist Alice Green released a report Tuesday claiming that recent gang sweeps charging suspected gang members under the government’s RICO statute are fueling an unjust cycle of incarcerating young black men, only to see them released and again fall into a life of selling drugs.

Green labeled the gang sweeps as “structural racism” and the “new Jim Crow.”

Albany County District Attorney defended the sweeps, saying they took violent criminals off the streets. Soares also noted that most of the victims of gang violence are black.

Among Green’s evidence was a 2007 study by the Justice Policy Institute that found Albany County ranked fifth among 198 counties nationwide in the ratio of African-Americans to whites for prison admission rates of drug crimes. That same study looked at 2002 Albany County prison admission rates for drug offenses per 100,000 population and found that 626 blacks were sent to prison compared with 11 whites. And in 2011, 1,843 blacks and 211 whites were sent to prison per 100,000 population — four times as many as New York City, Green said.

“For generations, black men have been feared and labeled inferior and innately criminal,” Green said. “This mass incarceration of black males for nonviolent crimes perpetuates the myth of black inferiority and makes Albany County one of the most racially disparate sentencing districts.”

Albany County District Attorney David Soares said he respected Green’s focus on the issue of race, but he disagreed with her conclusions.

“The federal sweeps removed some of the most dangerous felons from our community,” said Soares, who added that violent crimes in the city have dropped sharply as a result. “The fact that some of the individuals being prosecuted are African-American should not take away from the fact that the vast majority of the victims are also African-American.”